"Behind the Odds"...Article on Yahoo! Sports

[Sadat X]

There's some interesting stuff here. How about the guy who put $500 on the Rams to win the Super Bowl at 200-1?

Article by Dan Wetzel

[20Five]

the books dont try to balance the money in every game they take action on.

[craig r]

[ QUOTE ]
the books dont try to balance the money in every game they take action on.

[/ QUOTE ]

And the main guy they interview in that article, Scucci, will be the first to tell you that. They want to win.

craig

[charmy]

I wonder how much he makes doing that.

[youtalkfunny]

"Then, to make it even worse, the line was Tennessee plus seven and the Super Bowl pushed," Scucci recalled. "So we had to pay out all of the front-bet money and we didn't make a dime on the game."

I think he forgot about the Ties Lose parlay card, that does booming business that week. At the Vegas book where I worked, we held 93% of the substantial parlay card handle.

"Because of his job, he is legally barred from betting on any game..."

I worked in Vegas sportsbooks for seven years. This is news to me.

"the books dont try to balance the money in every game they take action on."

This is also news to me.

Remember when the NFL canceled their games in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy? ESPN.com's business reporter, Darren Rovell, wrote an article about how the move affected business in the Vegas books that weekend. Rovell reported that they were, of course, virtually empty, compared to a typical September Sunday.

The article quoted a sportsbook supervisor from Circus Circus. She told Rovell that on a typical NFL Sunday, they would handle a few thousand dollars (I can't remember the exact number, but it was ridiculously low, like $2000 or $4000--something you would expect of a small-time bookie, not a Strip resort).

Rovell's email address appeared on the page, so I wrote him, and asked, "Are you SURE of that number?"

He wrote me back. He said the number shocked him, as well. He never asked about the handle, but she volunteered that figure. He also thought that couldn't be right, and he double-checked with her that he had in fact heard her correctly. She repeated the same figure.

I still didn't believe it. I wrote another email, this time to a friend who managed a different Vegas book (the one I used to work at, just a year before 9/11), and asked him if this was possible. He assured me that Circus didn't want to take any bets, they just wanted parlay card action.

If the books are that afraid to gamble, I have trouble accepting the notion that they would rather not try to balance their action.

[youtalkfunny]

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder how much he makes doing that.

[/ QUOTE ]

The sports book is the lowest-paying section of the casino.

Supply and demand. There are a ton of people willing to work that fun, cushy job for a low wage. I was, until I got married and started a family. At that point, fun time was over, and I had to get a better-paying job.

Poker supervisors command a high salary, because dealers will turn down promotions that include a huge pay-cut. This is not an issue in the sportsbook, where ticket writers gladly accept an extra $2/hr, and the chance to watch tv and surf the net, instead of dealing with customers on the front line.